


check your pulse, test your vitals

by unrain



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:51:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrain/pseuds/unrain
Summary: How's your heart, sweetheart?





	check your pulse, test your vitals

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: mentioned violence and gun use and torture, but nothing is graphic.

Andrew will tell you that the way he and Neil met and got to the point they are today, is a long, complicated story. Neil calls bullshit. It’s very simple, honestly. They were enemies, Neil working for what’s called the mafia around these parts of the country, although that’s looking at it with a Disney filter, benevolence or willful ignorance; call it what you will. If you want to put a name on it, let’s call it The Agency. Andrew worked for another agency, so maybe they were not enemies precisely, but rivals nonetheless, because from a commoner’s perspective, Neil would be the Bad Guy and Andrew would be the Good Guy.

When Neil tells Andrew this, he laughs, teeth sharp and eyes sharper, says, “What’s the difference between killers?” And maybe he has a point. What’s the difference between a Bad Guy with a gun and a Good Guy with a gun when it all results in the same; bullets hitting skulls and shattering them easier than egg shells, blood oozing out like yolk? “We both got red hands,” Andrew says and Neil is pushed to another time.

“We both got red hands,” Andrew says, but at this point of the story, Neil doesn’t know the man in front of him is named Andrew, just knows he’s laying on the floor with crushed ribs and a bullet hole in his thigh, and he still has the fucking nerve to look Neil dead in the eye with a mocking grin full of pink teeth from the blood in his mouth. “What are you waiting for, Cerberus?”

Neil can’t help but wince at the call name—he really fucking hates it, but it got stuck to him faster than he could open his mouth and introduce himself. Cerberus, the hell dog. The left hand to the butcher.

The earpiece in Neil’s crackles. “I got the bugger on my side. What are you waiting for?” a voice says, urging him to get a move on. “Kill the bug and get to the target!”

“What,” Andrew says from the floor, licking his lips, unaware of the one-sided argument happening in Neil’s earphone. He leans back onto his elbows and tilts his head nonchalantly to the side, nodding towards the gun Neil has been pointing at him for a good minute now. “Come on and shoot already, if you’re worth your name. I knew you were a dog, but I didn’t know you were a _bitch_.”

Neil shoots.

The bullet hits and lodges itself into the wall behind Andrew, and Neil lies, “I got him,” into the radio and leaves a bleeding Andrew behind in the room. Neil tells himself he leaves Andrew alive to earn some good karma, but the truth is, he figures he’ll die in that very same room anyway, due to the inevitable blood loss. Or maybe he leaves Andrew alive because he’s the first one to articulate aloud some of Neil’s inner thoughts. Or maybe he just found Andrew’s bloodied grin interesting and hinged some good will on that.

Either way, karma does come back to bite Neil in the ass.

“Think fast,” Andrew says another time, the second time they meet, actually, right before he pulls a gun on Neil and shoves it in his stomach so hard it makes Neil retch on empty air and stomach acid. 

Just like the first meeting, this meeting is also cloaked in red, but in a different way. Opulence shoved down your throat in the form of killer trends and lavish red curtains and long red carpets and red wines and red grapes and a target dressed in a red suit bought with his blood red money. It’s an extravagant party, but not big enough for Neil to not have seen everyone at this party in the face once, letting his eyes slide over every guest, every waiter and waitress and security guard. That’s why, alongside the sight of Andrew and air and acid, is unadulterated shock. Neil doesn’t understand how he missed Andrew, how he ever must’ve seen him across the room and let his eyes slide over him just as easily, unconsciously deeming him as a non-threat, just another body. The man in front of him is as dangerous as the devil.

After the initial pain and shock, Neil takes a step back to lean against the bar top table behind him and suppresses the urge to look the man over to see if he’s just as gorgeous in a tailored dress suit as he was in his black, standard full-body gear, bleeding out. They say the devil was the most gorgeous angel.

Feeling the gun still pressed at his side, Neil fold his hands on top of the table, being the epitome of calmness and nonchalance if you look away from his white knuckles. “Ah,” he says through gritted teeth, and okay, maybe he’s not so chill, after all. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

An attendant passes them by with a tray of tall glasses. Andrew waves her over and grabs one, giving a tip of the glass and a smile with teeth in thanks. As if he isn’t holding a gun to Neil’s side with the other hand. He takes a sip, biding Neil’s time, before he answers. Or rather questions.

“Why’d you let me live?”

Neil let’s a breath through his nose. “That’s it? That’s what you want to know from me? There was no need for the gun, I’d answer without it.”

The gun presses harder to Neil’s side. “Don’t play with me,” Andrew says. “Here’s the deal. The man you’ve been eyeing? He’s mine.”

“I didn’t know my fancy was getting in the way of yours,” Neil says. “My apologies, but you know what they say; let the best man win.”

If Kevin was here instead of recovering from a broken leg in their moldy, broken down two-rooms apartment as the pampered little prince he is, he would’ve rolled his eyes at Neil’s dramatics. But Kevin’s not here, only this charismatic man with a glint in his eyes and a much too manic smirk for Neil’s liking, leaning his back against the table, his elbows on top of it, the pose familiar, but this time Andrew’s the one with the gun and all the control.

“Your partner was pretty with a gun in his mouth,” Andrew says and Neil already knows that Seth is dead, “snoot-soaked and blubbering, especially with the bullet hole through his head, and when I was done and finished with him, I thought to myself, who else would’ve looked pretty choking on a gun?”

“Aw,” Neil says and it’s at that point he realizes that he’s lost sight of his target and has been staring at the velvet drapings in front of him for the past minute, that he’s forgotten about the gun at his side, but he finds himself not caring that much about it. “And you thought of me? Way to make a man feel special, huh…?”

Neil looks over and finds the man beside him already scrutinizing him. He smiles when he notices Neil looking at him, and damn, yeah, Neil was right; he’s fucking ravishing.

“Andrew Minyard,” Andrew says.

“Neil,” Neil says, “Josten.”

“The dog has a name,” Andrew says delighted, and hands Neil his glass. “Here, for our new acquaintance.”

Neil takes the glass and throws back his head to drink the remains in one shot, keenly aware of Andrew’s gaze at his face, running down the line of his neck. It’s after that, that Andrew digs the gun dead at Neil’s side again, indicating for him to follow as Andrew leads them both away from the party and up the curved staircase to a secluded balcony all good mansions worth their money should have.

“Getting me alone, Minyard?” Neil says when Andrew instructs for Neil to close the balcony door. There’s a lock, but Neil doesn’t bother with it, and neither does Andrew. “That’s very dangerous, and very stupid.”

Andrew hums, looking at Neil with that fucking smirk that’s been firing up something wild in Neil’s stomach and all Neil wants to do is wipe it right off his infuriating face. “Maybe I’m curious about your danger,” Andrew says, and holds the gun up to wave it in front of Neil’s face. “I’ve showed you mine; how about you show me yours, Josten?”

The gun is already in Neil’s hand before Andrew’s finished with the sentence, the sound of the safety being switched off with a deadly click, followed by the sound of Neil’s name in Andrew’s mouth.

“You asked?”

“And you do exactly as people say,” Andrew says, smirk still in place despite having a gun pointed at his chest. He puts a hand on Neil’s chest and Neil lets him. “What a good dog. But you still won’t do it.”

Finger on the trigger, Neil asks, “And why’s that?”

“Because you’re not really a bitch and you don’t have the heart to kill me, sweetheart,” Andrew says. “Your heart is beating like a rabbit.”

Andrew leans in, hand pressing harder down at Neil’s chest, and says, or rather whispers, because there’s no need to raise their voice any louder with the small and shrinking distance between them, “You’d be surprised of what people can do with a gun to their chest.”

Neil licks his lips, says, “Then, surprise me.”

Andrew kisses Neil. It’s not really surprising in itself, just the inevitable resolution of a slow catastrophic train crash where you can see the conclusion miles ahead. All kinds of principles fly out the window with a warm body pressed up to yours and this is by no means a new territory for Neil. Not for Andrew either, it becomes apparent, with the rough way he kisses Neil, pushing him back against the railing and digging a hand around Neil’s side to make a matching bruise to the ones he left with the gun on his other side. Teeth scrape against Neil’s bottom lip, giving only the slightest warning before a cruel bite that draws blood, dragging a moan out of him and making his hips stutter forward. Andrew only pushes his thigh up against Neil’s hard cock, and doesn’t let up, doesn’t let Neil breathe.

Neil feels lightheaded, but he doesn’t dare put away the gun between them, and so he tries to fix his stance after being distracted, when he realizes he physically can’t. The gun slips away from his slackened fingers, and the crack as it hits the marble floor, makes Andrew push away from Neil as if he was burned.

And God, is Andrew a sight, tousled hair and slick lips, blown pupils and tie undone. It doesn’t distract him enough for Neil to not notice how unsteady he is on his feet though.

“You fucker,” Neil says as he slides down to his knees, just as realization dawns on him, just as the edges of his vision is blackening. “You drugged me.”

The last thing Neil sees is Andrew’s hands, strong and calloused, catching him before his head hits and cracks open against the marble floor. So the real surprise, as it turns out, is not the kiss, but Neil finding himself waking up at the exact same spot in the morning, breath coming up in white puffs and his suit all wrinkled and grossly damp, clinging to his skin in all the uncomfortable places.

He supposes he should be thankful—Andrew’s a killer with too much red on his hands to be conscious of the body count he leaves behind; it’s already too many to count, so what’s one more? Neil knows because Neil knows the type because, hell, he _is_ the type. The one to make walking silently across floors into an art form, to a whole grand life style, where the only occasions he was allowed to stomp, was to push down conscious and guilt; Neil’s got two feet, one for each, conscious and guilt, and he got very, very good at stomping both. Andrew and him can call themselves whatever they want, but they both know what they are. Hitmen. And hitmen is only comfortable with their two feet connected to the ground, standing behind a big gun, heavy and powerful in their hand. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a bullet through your head will kill you fucking dead, you know?

Even if Andrew didn’t kill him, he could’ve taken him back to his agency for intel gathering, maybe some torture. Neil had plenty of info, and Andrew knew his identity as the left hand, and still. Still, he left him alive.

Neil’s an idiot, Kevin will tell you, but Neil will argue that he’s an idiot in the same way that everyone is inherently an idiot. He’s not special. He knows that this is just a way for Andrew to make sure he pays off his debt, put Neil at his mercy, only for Neil to know Andrew left him alive. The equilibrium is at zero again. Yeah, Neil is an idiot, but he’s not stupid. But in a world full of pricks, Kevin’s a cactus, and he’ll never pass a chance to rib Neil and tell you that Neil’s an adrenaline junkie. That he likes trouble, gets hard only by the whiff of it. It doesn’t matter what shape it comes in, and most times Neil doesn’t really think about the consequences. (“It’s because your frontal lobe never developed past twelve years old,” Kevin says, and Neil thinks he’s being way too haughty for a man who broke his leg on the last step of a fucking _staircase_.) But Neil likes it because it’s the only thing that makes his heart beat a little faster, the blood rush through his veins a little faster, and make him feel alive.

So when he wakes up on that godforsaken balcony and finds his heart still beating a little faster than usual, it’s no wonder Neil feels a little bit cheated. For what, he doesn’t know. All he can tell you is that the subtle scent of Andrew’s cologne is still on his suit.

He takes a deep breath and holds it, tell himself he should be thankful that at least it wasn’t torture, almost killed but not, just left on the edge wishing he was killed.

Neil doesn’t have to hold his breath for long though, because the torture does come, only much later, and though it happens in Andrew’s agency, it’s not by Andrew himself. No, he just happens to show up in the aftermath, coming in through the cell doors to look down at Neil sitting helplessly on the floor, his back against the wall and his hands shackled to it over his head.

“You got a big mouth for a dog,” Andrew says, bending down and tilting his head to catch Neil’s gaze with a thoughtful expression. “Thought dogs were supposed to be loyal.”

“Well,” Neil says through the blood oozing from a wound in his mouth which he got from the ninth punch to his head. Or maybe the tenth, but hey, who’s really counting? “You always said I didn’t look like a bitch.”

“So you thought to listen to me now?” Andrew says. “Hey. Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you.”

“Fuck off,” Neil says, spitting blood out. Andrew takes his chin in hand and forces Neil’s neck to bend and look up at him, which is just as fine. Neil doesn’t really have the strength to do so himself.

“How’s your heart?” Andrew asks, just like he’s always done every time they’ve passed each other since that second meeting.

Neil smiles, closes his eyes because it’s just too much effort to hold them open. “Still beating,” Neil says, just like he’s always done.

Neil can hear Andrew hum, feels his breath against his lips when he speaks up. “Not for long.”

Neil wants to laugh, but he doesn’t because the pressure would make his wounds bleed again, so he only lets a sharp breath through his nose. “Probably not.”

“You look tired,” Andrew says, the thumb on the hand holding Neil’s chin lightly running over the scars on Neil’s cheek.

“No shit?”

“You know I don’t owe you anything. I paid off my debt.”

At that, Neil musters the strength to open one eye, looking blearly at Andrew’s face, but the manic smile he’s so used to seeing in the years they now have known each other, is nowhere on his face, only a somber Andrew that looks back at him with tired eyes as well.

“I don’t expect anything,” Neil says.

“Good,” Andrew says and leaves Neil to die, the heavy thud of the door slamming shut sounding like a death sentence and the following footsteps wearing thinner and thinner as he walks away, echoing Neil’s stuttering heart.

Except this is not an end, but their beginning. The start of another story. Andrew comes back just a few hours later to unlock the shackles off Neil’s hands and drag him to some in-house nurses. Here’s the deal, he says, jostling the bed Neil’s in by sitting on the edge of it. You owe me your life now and I want you to use it to be my partner. Your life is forever tied to this agency, so you’re now our dog. And the only dog worth keeping, is a good dog.

We killed each other’s partners. It’s karma.

“Woof woof,” Neil replies and there’s the smile on Andrew’s face again, always so charismatic and always on the wrong edge of manic.

"What," Andrew says, "I don't get a kiss for all my troubles?"

Neil grabs Andrew's wrist, the hand that's still holding the cuffs, and gently kisses the cold metal. Watches as Andrew's eyes darken. "Maybe next time," Neil says and falls asleep.

Of course, there’s more to the story, all the years in between where they caught each other in passing, dark alleyways and rooftops only lit by moonlight, guns to each other’s head and lips on each other’s lips. But these are the incidents you need to know to understand their dynamic, to understand how they work. That owing each other their lives is the only way they work.

It’s not exactly trust, what they have, just a case of a lack of mistrust, but in the business they were in, where trust was measured in dead bodies, Andrew saying, “I got your six,” might just be the deal breaker. Or maybe it’s how he looks at Neil before and after every mission, asking, “How’s your heart, sweetheart?”

“Still beating.”

They don’t call it a romance. They call it just enough.

**Author's Note:**

> originally published 2018-02-17  
> feedback of all kinds is what i live for honestly!!! hope you enjoyed!!!


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